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high brows and propaganda, summer lake wall, justice becomes a day old donut

Most conservatives have either never heard of The Paris Review or since it has a French word in the title think it is obviously some kind of lefty rag – anyone remember “freedom” fries (which was both ironic and disrespectful of the French solders who were dying while part part of the coalition in Afghanistan). The Paris Review may have been in cahoots ( I love that word) with the CIA, Exclusive: The Paris Review, the Cold War and the CIA.

Though these efforts started with conferences, they soon moved to publishing. In his “Proposal for the American Review,” Melvin Lasky argued for the creation of a magazine to “support the general objectives of U.S. policy in Germany and Europe by illustrating the background of ideas, spiritual activity, literary and intellectual achievement from which the American democracy takes its inspiration.” As Saunders wrote, The American Review was born instead as Germany’s Der Monat. Its equivalent in France was Preuves, edited by Francois Bondy. In the U.K., it would be called Encounter, edited by poet Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol (later replaced by Lasky). All, Saunders reported, would be secretly funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Encounter was born in a planning meeting attended by Michael Josselson (who would covertly lead the Congress for Cultural Freedom for the CIA for most of its life), the composer Nicolas Nabokov (Vladimir’s first cousin), and, from the United Kingdom, by Christopher Montague Woodhouse, a British intelligence officer.

The Review and these other publications did publish some great stuff over the years – short fiction interviews, articles and poetry. That all becomes a little tarnished when, even with the best intentions, the editorial content may have swung a little too far on this or that person or event, because the coverage was tinted however slightly by propaganda. Writer and editor George Plimpton was at TPV during part of its CIA shenanigans. He and James Linville did this interview, Fran Lebowitz, A Humorist at Work.

There are some great writers who are great talkers, but there are more great writers who are not great talkers. People seem to think there is some connection between talking and writing, but I love to talk and if there were some connection between the two of them I would be the most prolific writer in the history of the world.

INTERVIEWER

What if you dictated a book?

LEBOWITZ

Then you would have a dictated book.

INTERVIEWER

What’s the difference?

LEBOWITZ

That’s not writing. Talking is not writing. To me, it would be even a slower way to write. To me, dictating a book seems impossible. But what would also be impossible, would be to write on one of those word processors. There’s too much distance.

INTERVIEWER

What do you use then?

LEBOWITZ

A Bic pen. I’m such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don’t need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself. I think if there were no such thing as men, there would be no word processors. Male writers like them because they have this sneaking suspicion that writing is not the most masculine profession. This is why you have so much idiotic behavior among male writers. There are more male writers who own guns than any other profession except police officers. They like machines because it makes them seem more masculine. Well, I work on a machine. It’s almost as good as being a mechanic.

After his defeat, Butler appeared at a conference on judicial selection reform. Holding up a copy of John Grisham’s 2008 novel, The Appeal, he said, “Welcome to my world.” In the novel, a chemical company’s industrial waste poisons the water in a Mississippi town, causing widespread cancer and death. The company stage-manages and heavily funds a successful campaign to replace a liberal justice with a conservative one, who shifts the state supreme court from left to right and casts the deciding vote to overturn a $41 million verdict against the company. The ads that defeated the liberal incumbent attacked her record on crime and other social issues, but really it was her lack of favoritism to business that led the company to take her down.

Like Grisham’s successful challenger, Michael Gableman was a little-known county trial judge with thin credentials, recruited by business to run against Butler. He became the first candidate to defeat a sitting justice since 1967; only three other justices in state history had been defeated in the previous 115 years—in 1947, 1908, and 1855.

I like money. Though unlike Ayn Rand and modern conservatism I do not confuse it with virtue.

Children Listen to Radio for News of Amelia Earheart. The original caption on this image read, “Medford, MA. Little David Morrissey tunes in the latest report of the thrilling search being made for his Aunt, Amelia Earheart Putnam , missing aviatrix. Meanwhile, David’s five year old sister Aimee uses her small globe to point out the spot in the Pacific Ocean from whence faint radio signals supposedly from lady Lindy and her navigator, Capt. Fred J. Noonan, were heard. July 5, 1937.” Copyrighted image. I posted this because of this recent news, Earhart’s Anti-Freckle Cream Jar Possibly Found. There is a picture at the link and more details.